Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Ideology is the biggest Republican problem

Kevin Drum has written another of those "Republicans need to be nice" articles over at Mother Jones, "The GOP's Immigration Problem Goes Way Beyond Immigration." He specifically discusses the small amount of movement from conservatives on immigration. Drum doesn't mention this, but it is amusing that conservatives are treating Latinos just like they claim liberals treat women. Throughout the campaign, they said that women cared about economics, not birth control. Well, now the conservatives are claiming that the only reason Latinos hate them is because they didn't support the Dream Act.

The truth is that the conservatives were always kind of right. Most of what people care about are economic issues. And birth control is an economic issue. Immigration is an economic issue. Being on the right side of these issues is not sufficient to get these groups' votes, but it is necessary. We need to applaud conservatives who make this small step forward, but I wonder if it will lead anywhere. I fear that they will instead reach a place where they just can't believe these Latinos want even more.

When I talk about what Latinos want, I'm talking about greater income equality. Drum, in his infinite villager wisdom, is talking about messaging. He quotes conservative fucktard Bernie "The liberal media are destroying America!" Goldberg, "There is a strain of bigotry -- and that's the word I want to use -- running through conservative America... That has to leave the conservative movement... I am sick of it." Drum follows up on this is a most poetic way:

Like it or not, conservatives are going to need a much more thorough housecleaning if they want to survive in an increasingly diverse future. No more gratuitous ethnic mockery. No more pretense that reverse racism is the real racism. No more suggestions that minorities just want a handout. No more screeching about the incipient threat of Sharia law. No more saturation coverage of the pathetic New Black Panthers. No more complaining that blacks get to use the N word but whites don't...

And so on. It's good writing, but it misses the point. Conservatives don't talk this way for nothing. Goldberg is right: there are a lot of people who vote Republican because they are bigots. I'm not suggesting that there aren't racists in the Democratic Party. But they vote Democratic despite their bigotry, not because of it. And let's get real: given the Republican Party ran a "whites only" campaign this year, they aren't likely to abandon the racists in their party who are some of their strongest supporters. The party may tone done the rhetoric, but that's about all.Of course, all of this talk of racism and the war on women misses the point. Even if the Republicans perfected all their pretty talk and convinced enough people to vote them into power, it would not last. Republican ideology is against everyone but the very rich. The democracy will only allow so much income inequality. After a certain point, the inequality is reduced or the democracy is destroyed. This is why the Republicans have been trying to suppress the vote. They know that in order to continue to be a dominant party they must either water down their ideology or our democracy. I don't see them working on their ideology any time soon.(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)